Clara Sánchez Sala

“Writing is trying to know what we would write if we wrote”
Marguerite Duras, Écrire, Gallimard, 1993

As an echo of the artistic practice of Clara Sánchez Sala, this quote by Marguerite Duras accompanies her entire production to date. If for Duras writing is an intention, for Sánchez, the act of creating is an attempt that takes place in the impossible meeting of past and present.

The artist constantly remembers and measures her favorite trips, the time that elapses between autobiographical events and history. From this poetics of intimacy, she not only recreates her personal history, but also plays with temporal imbalances to awaken a feeling of estrangement from her personal environment.

Clara’s works are indications that point to the heuristic effect of distance. The artist thus places the viewer in the archaeologist’s situation, seeing the pieces as riddles that she cannot directly identify. Sánchez regularly uses this distancing process to question what is seen and what is known, and thus underline the idea of impermanence and incompleteness.